Deep Pan, Crisp, and Even – This Week’s Links
The last links of the year?! Don’t worry, we’ll be back again before you know it…
Article Archive
Children of the Black Sun #1-4
Though exerting a profound influence in hindsight, the then-groundbreaking Stray Toasters by Bill Sienkiewicz nowadays offers some belligerent flaws, mostly owed to certain frameworks getting reassessed, i.e., victimized women no longer serve as plot devices. Also unhelpful: trying too hard to be art, unmatched though the epic Epic miniseries’ landscape-changing visuals remain, from its continuation/conviction… Read more »
Roger Hill, Early Comics Fan, Historian and Scholar, Dies at 75
Author and historian Grant Geissman remembers Roger Hill, a prominent figure in early comic book fandom, known for zines, books and essays from the 1960s through right now. Hill died December 6, 2023, aged 75.
Nemesis the Warlock – The Definitive Edition Vol. 1
So perhaps, dear heart, we shall begin at the most logical place: imagine with me the sensation of a great steel pike impaling itself on your skull, piercing between the eyes and poking out from the other side. People do survive such injuries, you know. Open your eyes then and glance again at Nemesis the… Read more »
Teddy Bears and Ink: Joakim Pirinen
Robert Aman is back with another expedition into the wilds of Swedish alternative comics! This time, he profiles cartoonist Joakim Pirinen, purveyor of ill-tempered brutes, desensitized bourgeoises, and soft bears that bare the artist’s soul.
Ian Gibson, 1946-2023
Remembering Ian Gibson, one the crucial early artists of 2000 AD and co-creator of one of the most beloved UK comics of that era, The Ballad of Halo Jones.
Nate Garcia is America’s Cowboy
Zach Rabiroff chats with one of the best young cartoonists on the busy Philadelphia scene: Nate Garcia, prolific creator of the surreal cowboy Alanzo Sneak and much, much more.
Turkey I’m On Your Side – This Week’s Links
I would never cancel the noble pig, an intelligent and delicious beast.
Fiends of the Eastern Front
Gerry Finley-Day is an odd specimen from the stable of the original 2000 AD writers. Hugely important, of course. When Rebellion held their celebratory events for the 45th year of 2000 AD, they published only two writer-based collections: one for Judge Dredd co-creator John Wagner, a gimme if there ever was one; and one for… Read more »
Arrivals and Departures – December 2023
They said it couldn’t be done: an entire column reviewing comics about ducks. But thanks to the magic of Christmas and the intervention of Santa, to whom I pray each night, RJ Casey has come through.
Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History
“The only place where Negroes did not revolt is in the pages of capitalist historians.” -C. L. R. James, “Revolution and the Negro,” New International (Dec. 1939). * * * C. L. R. James, the Trinidadian Pan-Africanist and revolutionary Marxist, wrote on a dazzling array of subjects that fit with his wide variety of interests.… Read more »
A Hard Rain Fell on Lucca Comics & Games 2023
The story of what happened when one very prominent Italian cartoonist boycotted the biggest comics show in Europe, and how an entire nation responded.
The Ikegami Ryōichi Spider-Man Interview
Of the early examples of Japanese/American comic book cross-pollination, perhaps the most striking is 1970-71’s Supaidāman, Ikegami Ryōichi’s notoriously bleak, violent, political spin on Marvel’s Spider-Man. In this 2002 interview, translated to English for the first time, Ikegami himself discusses the genesis and the legacy of the project.
Watching Pluto
A few notes on the anime adaptation of a manga adaptation of a manga classic.
As Dark As December – This Week’s Links
Barking Dogs Jingle Bells is the worst holiday classic at the strip club.
The Chromatic Fantasy
My goodness, but what a gorgeous book! Sitting here, mulling over just how to begin a review, that’s the note my brain keeps thrumming. Pick up the book, feel how heavy it is in your hand. Not a huge book, as these things go (it’s 6″ x 8″), but nevertheless a substantial book, wedged in… Read more »
Dan Leno: The First Living Person to Have a Comic Title in their Name
Daniel Parker pays homage to not this Comics Journal, but Dan Leno’s Comic Journal: the 1898-99 official comic of the British music hall star, and the first named after a living person.
Who Wrote the Boy Commandos?
In which Steven Brower compares comic and science fiction writer Joseph Greene’s original scripts for several Golden Age classics to the final product, credited to the iconic team of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.
Time Under Tension
When I think about autobiographical comics, I always go back to the second issue of Joe Matt’s Peepshow. It’s the one where Joe’s girlfriend has dumped him after reading the first issue of Peepshow. I used to laugh at that comic as indicative of the swollen egos of the big man autobiographers, I can admit… Read more »
“I Was Always On The Weird End Of The Spectrum”: The Donald Simpson Interview
Cut class, tell the boss you’re sick, hand the kids an iPad – we’ve got an old-fashioned career-spanner here, as Jason Bergman sifts through a megatonnage of work with the one and only Donald Simpson.
Back to December – This Week’s Links
(Christmastime awe washes over my face) Look at all these links! (A toy train toots thru a gingerbread house)
One Hundred Tales
So… Osamu Tezuka. What’s his deal, anyway? Anyone ever heard of this cat? I think he may have done a couple things. Humbling, as a reader and certainly as a critic, to face that edifice: a huge granite monument blocking the horizon. The chisel in your hand seems a very small instrument indeed placed in… Read more »
Eternal Breath – Ron Regé, Jr.’s Spiritual Cycle
Hagai Palevsky takes a serious look at spirituality as communicated through the last decade or so of published work by one of the alt-comics greats, Ron Regé, Jr.
Adventures Into Archives
Shock! Tom Shapira plunges into the inky depths of reprint editions of old horror comics. EC! Warren! Atlas! Find out what sets them apart, and what pulls Tom apart, in this ghastly gallivant.
